Comprehension Is a Dreadful Thing, Really
by Le Masque31
Summary: "It drew nearer and nearer, and he could hear the rustle of robes sliding over leaves, the creature's soft exhales falling on the air, and still he did not understand." Harry slips into one of Lord Voldemort's nightmares. HP/TMR, if you squint. Rated for violence.


**Disclaimer:** If I owned _Harry Potter_, I wouldn't be writing fan fiction.

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Harry could not recall having fallen asleep—but he must have, for Grimmauld Place had disintegrated amidst dark trees and an even darker night. He squinted through the heavy, breathless gloom, cursing, by turns, his miserable eyesight and the wretched darkness dogging him even in dreams—it was eating away at his existence like acid, dripping into every crevice, rotting his last refuge. With a jolt of awareness, he dug numb fingers into his pockets—no wand.

He trundled forward, loath to linger among chill and shadows, and stepped briskly through the undergrowth in an attempt to drive off the cold; but it clung to his skin, a breath of ice reaching into his very soul—similar to the presence of Dementors, he thought, but more oppressive, more solid.

As he staggered over fallen branches and naked, claw-like bushes, faces, voices in the black night crept along the edges of his awareness. They fled when he turned to seek them, for they were creatures of death and decay, able to melt into the night as if they were nothing more than vapor. Disturbed and shivering, Harry stumbled on, watched by unseen eyes and trailed by muted whispers.

"… diseased …"

"… a monster …"

Fragments of words swelled in a ghostly chorus, sweeping through trees in the windless night. Harry could just make them out and frowned at their import, their oddness.

"… brilliant—nobody could have known …"

They rose and loomed over the forest; but a snapped twig sent them cowering underneath their shroud, leaving a strange, empty echo in their wake.

Harry shivered again, craning his neck as though to re-call the disembodied murmurs—he toppled over, tripped by a dry branch.

A movement ahead! He scrambled to his feet, peering into blackness momentarily unraveled by a glint, as though of a knife. The boy inched forward, and the stranger seemed to draw closer too. One more step, arm extended—his fingers brushed cool glass. He sighed—whether in relief or disappointment, he did not know—and cast a cursory glance around himself. Full-length, frameless mirrors peeked out from behind gnarled tree trunks, stretching the darkness into an endless void; but was it only darkness?

Deformed, horrible shapes, surely dragged forth from the bottom of an abyss, leered from the rippling glass surfaces, baring white teeth and staring with burning eyes. Gripped by panic, Harry swiveled round—nothing; yet the mirrors still held the same reflections. Perhaps they were illusions, he reasoned with himself, mere phantoms in enchanted mirrors—like the Mirror of Erised; or perhaps—his expression darkened and he wrapped his arms around himself—perhaps such monstrosity could be contained by nothing but a reflection, lest the world tumble into chaos.

The creatures gave no intimation of hostility, though: they shifted restlessly among themselves, eyes locked not so much on the young wizard, but on the darkness itself. From their midst, however, a tall, thin being, far more human than the rest, was gliding forward, and Harry watched its silent approach in the mirror, nonplussed. It drew nearer and nearer, and he could hear the rustle of robes sliding over leaves, the creature's soft exhales falling on the air, and still he did not understand.

"Harry Potter." The boy froze—it was not a formless whisper. The high, cold voice continued: "Why do you live?"

Harry turned toward the owner of that cruel voice, lifted wide eyes to the Dark Lord's face for but a moment, and found himself sprawled on the forest floor, twigs and brambles tearing at his skin, a hot, stinging sensation needling his cheek. He traced hesitant fingers over his face, wondering what had possessed Voldemort to slap him, of all things. When a foot collided with his ribs, doubling him over, wheezing and in pain, he understood: Voldemort had no wand either.

"Because I have something worth living for," he spat, daring, foolhardy—drunk on his own good luck. He was backhanded again, blood pooling in his mouth and dripping down his chin. He shook his head, suddenly dizzy, and a clawed hand clutched at his shirt, hoisting him off the ground and slamming him into the nearest mirror.

"You do not understand!" Voldemort shrieked, his voice a raw blaze of agony. The mirror shattered, glass raining over the boy, shredding his back and arms. His head snapped back against the mirror, and he crumpled, senseless, among sodden earth and leaves.

Harry did not regain consciousness for a very long time, and when he finally did, he wished he hadn't: pain flared up along his skin, and various body parts throbbed dully to the rhythm of his headache. Then he realized that fingers were gently carding through his hair and a low voice, as soothing as the sea, was murmuring incantations beside him. Slowly he became aware of the sound of waves washing across wet sand, and knew, with a frisson of dread, that he was still dreaming.

"Who are you?" he muttered, cracking open an eye and discerning nothing but dark hair and pale skin amidst blurred shapes and colors.

A pause. Then, a sigh. "You know me, Harry."

The boy gave a noncommittal mumble, too weary to press the issue further. "Well, you're evidently not Voldemort."

The warm, tingling feeling spreading up his back as his skin mended ceased for a moment. "No, I suppose I am not." Harry could hear the smile in the stranger's voice.

Unseen and unseeing, a shadow lurked by the edge of the black forest, pacing, distressed. He could not comprehend—there was no explanation. Potter, as abominable an encounter as it had been, he had understood, had blamed on their infernal connection. But Tom Marvolo Riddle—it was impossible. He had a wand, too, when Lord Voldemort had been unable to summon his own—in fact, it was the selfsame wand of yew he himself always sported. As to why his younger self was tending to the Potter brat—it was preposterous, outrageous. He abandoned the shadows, intent on questioning the impossible specter.

But said specter looked up and shook his head, a stern expression on his handsome face. Despite himself, Lord Voldemort stopped, transfixed. Sadness softened Tom Riddle's eyes, and Voldemort hated himself for being unable to look away.

"You do not understand," Tom Riddle murmured, a breath as soft as the breeze that the Dark Lord nonetheless heard and, worse, understood. The crack of Apparition rent the silence like a whip, and Lord Voldemort was left gazing at emptiness.


End file.
